A Kiss for Luck
by hamsiidris
Summary: Moving on to his second school of the year so far, Percy Jackson isn't particularly hopeful that this one will be any better than the last. Especially not when he manages to make a couple of new enemies, particularly a crazy blonde girl who hates his guts for no apparent reason.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

**Percy**

First days at a new school always suck.

I know that better than most people. I mean, with me moving schools practically every year, you'd think I'd be used to it, right?

Okay, maybe every year was a little bit of an exaggeration, but it definitely feels like it. But it's never my fault. Not really. Sure, there was that time I _accidentally _exploded one of the taps in the science room, flooding the whole floor, but no one told me the chemicals I was pouring down the sink would burn through the plastic pipes. My teachers thought I was being disruptive or something, but they just should've explained it better. And yeah, there was that time that my teacher ended up in the stingray tank at the aquarium, but that had nothing to do with me, either. And hey, the stingrays weren't the deadly kind.

But here I was, at another new school for the start of the school year. I didn't even know what had happened this time, except that my old principal hadn't wanted me back, which wasn't exactly surprising, considering my track record.

The school was bigger than most of my old ones, and cleaner too. My mom had liked this school, mostly because it was only a ten minute subway ride from our apartment, which meant I could live at home, for a change. Honestly, it was quite surprising that there were any schools left in the area that I hadn't already been expelled from.

I walked up the steps towards the glass doors at the top, taking in the school. It was tall and kind of gloomy, the building a dull grey colour and the kids weirdly well behaved, for the most part. Sure, there was gum stuck under each step, which I really didn't need to know about. I also didn't need to have a bright pink splodge on the sole of my converse on my first day of school, but I was already running late, so there wasn't really time to scrape it off.

At the top of the stairs, a tall, blonde kid was waiting for me, holding a small, spiral notebook in his hand.

"Percy Jackson?" he asked, glancing at me.

"Yeah," I said, nodding.

"Cool." The kid broke into a smile, a small scar standing out above his lip. "I'm Jason Grace. Welcome to Balkan High."

He handed me the book in his hands, which turned out to be a homework diary, and led me into the building.

The office was cold and kind of intimidating, like most school offices are. You only really go to them if you're in trouble, as I know pretty well. So principals offices don't bring up the best memories.

The secretary glanced up from her computer, her blue eyes scanning my face intensely. "Percy Jackson?"

I nodded.

She smiled, her red lips stretched across her incredibly pale skin. "I've been expecting you."

I gulped, trying not to think of all the horror movies I had ever watched in my life, but the secretary just smiled and continued.

"I'm Kelli Ee," she said. "Jason, will you take...Percy to his first class? Unless you have any questions.

"Nope," I shrugged, clearing my throat. "I, uh, think that about covers it…"

"That's why I'm here, Ms. Ee." Jason rolled his eyes, before turning back to face me. "Come on, then."

The bell had already rung, so the hallways were empty as Jason led the way towards the second floor, pausing outside a door marked _C. Brunner_.

"You're first class is History," Jason told me. "With me."

"Oh." I glanced at my schedule. "Cool...I guess."

I'd never really liked History, but it wasn't my least favourite class either. English was right down at the bottom of my list, which wasn't surprising, I guess, given that I have dyslexia and ADHD, which teachers don't really understand. Or trust.

Jason opened the door quietly, gesturing for me to follow him into the room.

The first thing I noticed was the teacher.

He was probably about my mom's age, and his brown hair was flecked with grey, and he wore a pair of glasses on a cord around his neck. I barely noticed those things, though, because I was too busy looking at his legs.

He was sitting in a wheelchair in front of the whiteboard, his legs tucked under a blanket. They looked almost inhuman, twisted in a way that made them look more like an animal's - like a horse or goat or something.

I knew I really shouldn't stare, but I had other things on my mind.

"Ah," the teacher exclaimed when he saw me, throwing his hands in the air and almost sending his glasses flying across the room. "You must be Percy. I'm Mr. Brunner. Your History teacher. Do you like History, son?"

I glanced nervously at Jason, who nodded encouragingly.

"Uh, yeah...yes, Mr. Brunner. History is...one of my favourite-"

"That's wonderful," the teacher beamed. "Alright, Mr. Jackson, you can sit next to Jason Grace, over there." He pointed to where Jason sat, in a desk towards the middle of the room. "I'll get you a book shortly."

I walked towards my new desk, trying to ignore the stares. A grouchy looking girl with hair like wires, who was probably about twice my size, shot me a death-glare as I walked past, while another girl with curly, dark hair and golden eyes smiled as me when I almost tripped over her backpack.

Dropping into the seat next to Jason, I reached for my backpack to find a pen. My heart sank as I dug past my jacket and new School Planner, searching for a pen that just wasn't there.

_This can't be happening._

The girl on the other side of me probably realised what was going on, and she turned away, hiding a smirk behind curly blonde hair. When I turned to look at her, her storm-cloud grey eyes flickered away from mine, turning back to the notebook on her desk.

Mr. Brunner chose that moment to...wheel, I guess, past my desk, screeching to a stop in front of me, holding a out a new notebook.

"Thanks," I said, taking it. "I, uh…"

"He needs a pen," the girl next to me filled in.

I shot her an annoyed glance as Mr. Brunner chuckled, scooting back towards his desk and reaching for a pen lying on top of it. I mean, the girl was probably trying to be helpful, but I could speak for myself. I was the new kid, and letting a girl solve all my problems for me wasn't going to help me make a good impression.

"Here," Chiron called, tossing the pen in my direction.

I reached out to catch it, my fingers closing around the simple, blue plastic pen. "Thanks, Mr. Brunner."

He laughed again. "No problem, Mr. Jackson. But please bring your own pens to my class in the future."

I nodded, and the teacher went back to explaining how Hitler invaded Belgium during the Second World War.

I zoned out after about five minutes. I couldn't help it. It's hard enough for me to focus generally, but listening to a fifty minute lecture on World War Two was pure torture.

After what felt like years, the bell finally rang. I leapt out of my seat along with the rest of the class, stuffing my new book in my bag. I rushed for the door, following the gold glint of Jason's hair out into the corridor.

I glanced down at the schedule in my hand. My next class was English. Great.

Jason, as it turned out, was also in my English class, so he led the way to the room. I couldn't help feeling a sense of doom as I stepped across the doorway. Part of the reason I hated English so much was because I just couldn't do it. Reading? No thanks. A page takes me about an hour to get through, what with my dyslexia and all. And don't even get me started on spelling. I couldn't spell to save my life.

The English teacher looked pretty strict. She had stormy grey eyes that somehow looked really familiar and dark hair pulled back in a tight braid. She glanced up at me as I walked in, her face totally expressionless.

"You must be Percy Jackson," she said, her eyes scrutinising me in a way that also seemed oddly familiar, but I just couldn't place it. What was with those eyes?

I nodded.

She paused for a moment, studying me. "Welcome," she said, after a moment, flatly. "I'm Ms. Sofea. You can sit next to Nico." She gestured at a guy in a hoodie, with shaggy black hair that hung over his eyes. He glanced up at me as I walked over and dropped into the seat next to him. His eyes were a really dark shade of brown, and he stared up at me through pieces of his overlong hair, looking like a little puppy or something.

Jason was sitting across the room, smiling as he talked to a pretty girl with a several fluffy white feathers braided into her dark their. The guy looked happier than he had all morning, so I figured she was his girlfriend.

I heard a soft thump behind me and turned around. It was the girl from earlier, the kind of annoying blonde with those creepy grey eyes and pretty princess curls, dropping her backpack onto the floor by her desk.

_Wait, what? _Princess _curls?_

I pushed the thought out of my mind as she frowned slightly, her big eyes narrowing as she caught me looking at her. Pushing a strand of hair that had escaped from her bouncy ponytail behind her ear, she dumped her books on the table, flapped open the fat library book on the top of the pile and started reading.

I blinked in surprise, turning back around to face the teacher.

I knew one thing about this girl, if nothing else. She was an interesting piece of work.

"Mom?" I called, dumping my backpack in the hallway as I headed for the kitchen.

My mom hadn't been waiting out on the street or just behind the front door, which she usually did on my first day of school. I found it kind of annoying, I guess, but, strangely enough, I felt a little put out that she hadn't been out there today.

That was unusual enough, but she wasn't in the kitchen either. Her laptop was open and still running, an unsaved draft of her new book open on the screen, but she was nowhere to be seen.

"Mom?" I called again, a little louder this time.

"Percy?"

This time she responded, her voice coming from the living room. Grabbing a blue cookie off a plate on the counter, I headed in her direction.

Don't ask about the blue food. It's a long story, and a long standing tradition for my mom and me. But you can't beat blue food, trust me. I've always been that way. Blue jellybeans, blue cupcake icing… My mom used to work in a candy store, and I'd only eat the blue stuff she brought home. As I said, though, it's kind of complicated.

My mom was sitting on the couch with her friend, Paul Blofis. He was a pretty cool guy - way better than any of the other men my mom had ever brought home. Don't even get me started on my former stepdad, Gabe Ugliano, also known as Smelly Gabe. After a while, my mom finally figured out that he was a total jerk and kicked him out, but that was only after he'd managed to make thousands of dollars by basically stealing off my mom and me. With me, it was outright robbery, but I guess he must have been more subtle with her around, for it to take her so long to get rid of him.

Opposite them, on the smaller couch, a little boy was sitting, holding a big blue cookie like the one I was eating. Okay, when I say little, he was little to me. But he had grown a whole lot since I last saw him.

"Percy!" he yelled when he saw me, leaping up and hurtling towards me, spilling blue cookie crumbs all over the carpet.

He wrapped his arms around me, squeezing the life out of me with one of his death-hugs. His overgrown, wavy hair came up to the neck of my t-shirt, and I had to untangle him from me and hold him out in front of me to believe that he had gotten so tall in the past few months.

"I'm almost as tall as you now, brother," he said, proudly, coming in for another hug.

"Not quite," I laughed, ruffling his hair. Then I turned to my mom, who had a crazy smile plastered across her face. "Mom, you didn't tell me Tyson was coming."

"That would ruin the surprise," she said, laughing.

I walked over to the couch, half dragging Tyson along because he refused to let go of me.

Okay, I guess there are some things I have to explain. First of all, Tyson isn't actually my brother. He's my _half _brother, I guess, on my dad's side of the family. I never knew my father. He left before I was born, travelling somewhere for work or something. He never came back, but I can tell that my mom still misses him. She still hopes that he might come home someday, but I think that's pretty far fetched. It's been seventeen years, and he's never decided to show up. Why should that change now?

Anyway, as I was saying, Tyson isn't really related to my mom at all, but she loves him just as much as I do. It's hard not to love Tyson.

We found out about him by chance a couple of years ago, when his mom died and I was kind of tracked down as his only living relative, I guess. It turns out that my father had known Tyson's mom after mine, but Tyson doesn't remember either of his parents, or what happened to them. It's kind of hard not to hate my dad after abandoning two of his sons, but he must have been a pretty great guy for my mom to still care about him after all this time.

So Tyson was left without a family. Our dad had, apparently provided for him, paying the fees in advance for some boarding school that he could stay at basically from the day his mom died until he was ready to go to college. But the school contacted us shortly after his mom died, asking if, with me being his only living relative, Tyson could meet us, and possibly stay over the holidays.

My mom was a little unsure at first, but she agreed, and look at us now. She loves him like another son. For the first time in his memory, Tyson actually has a mom.

"How was school, Percy?" my mom asked as I sat down on the couch, with Tyson still attached to my arm.

I shrugged. "It was alright."

"Make any friends?"

"Well…" I began, reaching for another cookie. "It's complicated."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

**Annabeth**

The new kid was really getting on my nerves by the time we left English.

Not only did he not bother to pay any attention in class, but he also appeared to be incredibly stupid. Beyond stupid. A total idiot.

For some reason, that annoyed me more than it should have.

Now, I was back in my room, sitting at my desk, surrounded by piles of homework, and all I could think about was him. Percy Jackson the idiot.

Which was also very annoying.

I muttered a curse under my breath as I crumpled my History essay into a little ball and tossed it at the trash can. It went in first try, but I wasn't exactly in the mood to celebrate. I mean, I had work to do. Lots of it.

Sighing, I abandoned my fourth attempt at the stupid History paper and decided to turn my attention to Math. I mean, numbers are pretty straightforward, right? You can't go wrong there.

Although, apparently, as I worked out ten minutes later, you can. My page was such a mess of scribbles, more of the page crossed out than actually written on.

Stupid Percy Jackson. Messing with my homework.

Deciding, for the first time in my life, that I would leave homework until later, I decided to head downstairs and find something better to do.

Following the sound of screaming, I made my way into the living room, where my cousins, Matthew and Bobby, had laid every single piece of Lego that I had ever owned out on the carpet and were trying to build a huge tower, but ended up falling over each other and messing everything up.

"Hi, Matt," I smiled, weaving through the Lego and rescuing my little cousin from an avalanche of little plastic bricks.

"Hey, Annie," he, smiled, handing me a piece. "Wanna help?"

Normally, anyone who calls me 'Annie' gets a punch in the face, but I don't mind if its Matthew or Bobby. Other than with them, though, my name is just Annabeth. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing else.

After a couple rounds of pleading and totally irresistible puppy-dog eyes, I found myself agreeing to help them with their tower.

To tell the truth, I didn't mind in the slightest. Sure, there was schoolwork to be done, and I was never one to procrastinate, but if there was one thing I liked more than a report card full of A+'s, it was architecture. I had always loved that kind of thing, drawing and planning, building lego models, playing those building-designer games on the computer. I already had my future as an architect totally planned out.

After I reconstructed the base of their tower, making sure it was solid, as opposed to them just stacking bricks on the floor. I showed Bobby how to fit the little bricks together so they overlapped and held firmly, while Matthew helped enforcing the base, so we would get the tower steady enough to stand on its own.

An exhausting half-an-hour later, we had a rickety little structure about as big as Bobby, the smaller one of my two little cousins. Sure, it would probably fall over if one of the boys breathed in its direction, but they seemed pretty happy with their handiwork, and I wasn't displeased either.

"You're the best, Annie," Matthew said, catapulting into my lap and wrapping his arms around my neck.

"Yeah," Bobby agreed, coming up behind me and leaning against my back, studying the tower critically. "Can we make it taller, Annie?"

I heard a heavy footstep outside the door, but chose to ignore it, smiling down at Bobby's innocent little face, swelled with pride for the little structure we had just constructed. That is why I loved my cousins so much. People were mean and complicated and you could never be sure of anything around them. But little kids were different. Simple, easy to understand, sweet, generous… What's not to love?

"Well..." I began, ruffling his hair. "I don't know if that's- "

I was cut off by a loud crack that echoed through the room. Before I had time to react, a tsunami of colourful plastic bricks rained down on us. I ducked, pulling Matthew close to me as I shielded him with my body, Bobby hiding behind my back as the Lego pieces that had once been a tower poured over us.

When the torrent appeared to be over, I risked a glance up.

My father stood, framed in the doorway, his glasses hanging lopsidedly across his nose and his hair sticking up on one side as he stared at his daughter and nephews, buried under a pile of Lego, with a stunned expression.

"_Uncle Fred,_" Bobby complained, wriggling out from behind me and crawling out onto the lego on his little hands and knees. "You killed our tower!"

"What…?" My dad was too surprised to answer. After a moment, his eyes flickered to me, widening even further. "Annabeth?"

I stood up, brushing the lego pieces out of the folds in my t-shirt and the turn ups of my shorts, facing my father. "Dad. I was, uh, helping Bobby and Matt build a tower."

Matt nodded enthusiastically, sticking one thumb in his mouth and clutching my arm with the other.

"Well, we mostly made it ourselves…" Bobby bragged, stepping up to my other side. "But Annie helped."

My father still looked at a loss for words. "A...tower?"

I sighed. He was clearly still somewhere else, his mind probably in the middle of some war even _I_ didn't know, or care, about. "Yes, dad. A tower. You know. The Eiffel Tower. The Tower of London…? Tower?"

He blinked, his eyes focusing. "Ah, yes. I should have known." He glanced at the Lego scattered across the floor. "Should have seen, more like. I'm sorry, boys." He ruffled Bobby's hair, earning a gap toothed grin. "Sorry about your tower." He glanced at the door, which must have swung open when he turned the handle, hitting the fragile little tower.

"That's fine, Uncle Fred," Matt said, sweetly. Bobby chimed in, but a cheeky expression had come over his angelic face.

"Yeah. No problem, Uncle Fred...as long as you help us rebuild it."

I almost laughed at my dad's wide eyed shock as Bobby handing him a little piece of Lego and turned on the charm, batting his big, fawn eyes and staring up at him through cherub-like blonde curls.

I decided to leave them to it, heading back upstairs to resume the homework attempt.

"Mind if I sit here?"

I glanced up to see a pair of deep, sea-green eyes staring at me, just above my face. Tearing my eyes away from those intense eyes, I took in the rest of the face, bronze-tanned cheeks, messy black hair, a confident, easygoing smile. He held a lunch tray in one hand, the other resting casually on the back of the chair next to mine.

The new kid. Percy Jackson.

What was he doing here?

I glanced at the boy who took the seat next to the one that Percy was holding. Jason. Of course. Where their guide went, new kids followed. And here he was, the new kid, looming over me with those green eyes and quirky smile.

"Uh…can I?" He gestured at the seat when I failed to answer.

"_May _I," I corrected, under my breath. I wasn't really sure how to answer him. It was the only unoccupied chair around the table and I wouldn't make the new kid go sit by himself. But did I want him to sit there? No.

"What?" Now he really looked confused.

Piper, one of my best friends - and Jason's girlfriend - shot me a weird look, smiling at Percy. "Ignore her. Of course you can."

Percy smiled, looking pretty relieved as he sat down. I resisted the urge to scoot my chair away from his like a little kid, turning my attention back to the book in my lap instead.

If I had my way, I wouldn't be sitting here at all. I'd prefer to eat alone, with my book, somewhere where I wouldn't be disturbed, wouldn't have to talk to people. Unfortunately, my friends, Piper and Hazel, had other ideas. So here I was. Sitting next to Percy Stupid Jackson.

"So Percy," Piper was saying, leaning over me to talk to him. I sighed, eyeing the sleeve of Piper's blue sweater, which almost dragged in the mashed potatoes and 'gravy' that floated around on my plate. It was cafeteria food, after all. It could have been anything from actual, but admittedly nasty, gravy to a puddle of mud and a pile of potatoes. "Where'd you move from?"

"Uh…" He ran a hand through his hair. The story was clearly pretty complicated. "Well, I went to school in Philadelphia for a while before this…"

"You play any sports, Percy?" Jason asked, grinning. Trust him. As captain of the football team, Jason was always trying to recruit.

Percy shrugged, more comfortable with this question. "I swim. It's been a while since I swam competitively or anything, but…"

Jason looked slightly disappointed, but Hazel piped up from the opposite side of the table, "There's a swim team here. You should join."

Percy looked pretty happy. "Thanks. Maybe I will…"

Leo, a scrawny, sweet kid who was pretty close to Piper and Jason, grinned, setting down the little structure he'd been making out of bent paper clips. "So, why'd you move here? I mean, I understand that Balkan High is just awesome and all, but…"

After a brief silence, I glanced up at Percy, waiting for his response. Now he seemed really uncomfortable, his tanned cheeks tinged pink as he looked down at his plate. "I, uh…"

He was saved by a slight commotion caused by Frank Zhang, Hazel's boyfriend and the World Clumsiest Teenager, managing to trip over Leo's chair leg as he walked over to the empty seat next to Hazel. Fortunately, he caught his tray before the food could go flying, catching himself on the table with his other hand.

"Sorry…" He blushed, glancing at Hazel, who rolled her eyes.

I glanced at the new kid again. The blush had faded from his face, and he looked more at ease now. But why had he been so uncomfortable before? Why had Leo's question unnerved him?

Was there something he didn't want us to know about, something that had to do with why he switched schools?

He looked up at me, his eyes meeting mine for a second. I quickly glanced away, burying my nose in my book again, my mind still full of questions about the new kid.

Okay, sure. I was curious.

But he was still an idiot.


End file.
